The Landworkers’ Radio: Behind the scenes

   We’ve just launched the new third series of the Landworkers’ Radio, ‘Of Sweat and Soil’, a story of landworker organising in the UK.

   From our roots in resistance, to union organising and building solidarity, the Landworkers Alliance  celebrates 10 years of resistance and resilience in this 4-part podcast series, sharing the voices from our membership here in the UK and globally with La Via Campesina. 

   Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes on a podcast? Well, we spoke with Georgie Styles, producer and presenter on The Landworkers’ Radio, to find out!

Can you tell us the story of how The Landworkers’ Radio began?

The idea to start a Landworkers’ Alliance podcast had been around for quite a few years before The Landworkers’ Radio began. But when I joined the LWA as a staff member in 2020, I joined these discussions and worked on a Climate Justice podcast series with Roz Corbett as a part of her work at COP26 – which was a great success! After this, I teamed up with another LWA staff member, Dee Butterly to explore what a more frequent podcast channel for the LWA could look like. As a union, we are led by our members, and so we first sent out a survey to the membership to test the waters and see if a podcast was actually something they wanted, and if so, what type of podcast would be useful to them. This idea got a huge level of engagement, on our social media posts and the survey, with a resounding ‘yes’ from all respondents. It was clear that there was no existing podcast in the UK that focused primarily on agroecological landworker knowledge exchange. So members expressed a huge interest in the LWA setting up and running a podcast that uplifts the voices, knowledge and practices of our membership and networks. So that’s what we did! The Landworkers’ Radio was officially launched in 2022, with a season of 5 episodes exploring things like access to land, seed sovereignty, short supply chains and community food hubs. Everything was designed around what the membership wanted – the topics of the episodes, the people we interviewed – and it is still completely led by the membership. Our aim is to create a podcast to inspire, engage and inform land-based workers of all kinds and help continue to build the political and practical standing of the agroecological food and farming movement across the UK.

What has The Landworkers’ Radio achieved so far?

We launched in 2022 and have since had thousands of downloads across all our platforms and in over 56 countries. Which has been a huge achievement! We have brought all of our podcast seasons together under one channel, so you can now listen to our COP26 Climate Justice series, our Food Justice series and our newest series, ‘Of Sweat and Soil’, in one place. As a part of these three seasons we have captured the voices of many of the LWA’s land working members, supporting members, member organisers, staff team members, collaborating organisations and people within the wider food sovereignty and land justice movement here in the UK and globally with La Via Campesina. It’s been a great project so far, full of agroecological knowledge exchange which we hope will continue to grow with time. We’ve definitely had our challenges, in terms of limited capacity, resources, time and funding, but I think we’ve achieved a lot in the last couple of years and have built a dynamic audio platform that can adapt and grow with our movement, hopefully continuing to reflect the creativity and diversity of the food sovereignty movement as we go forward.

What is the latest series about?

Can you give us a glimpse behind the scenes of making the new series?

So the production of this series was a little different to usual. For our Food Justice series, we planned the script and questions for each episode and focused on one theme and one story per episode. In this series, we celebrate 10 years of the LWA, so it made sense to include as many voices as possible. With a limited travel budget I recorded most of the series at the Landskills Fair 2023, which is the LWA’s annual celebration. This is a space where hundreds of our members, both landworkers and supporters, gather together for a weekend of music, food, dancing, workshops, talks and skill shares – so it’s the perfect place to capture many of the voices of our movement, both new and old. I had a rough idea of the voices I wanted to capture over the weekend, so some people I managed to book in to record with – usually in the back of my van to minimise background noise – true grassroots style! But I always had my recorder and mic with me just in case I bumped into someone else, and this was great as I managed to team up with Abel Pearson from the LWA to capture most of the member organiser voices for episode three. All of the other interviews I captured either remotely or in person at another time. LWA members Jo Kamal and Edwin Brooks were the LWA representatives at the LVC meet up in Colombia and so I sent them on their way with mics in hand to capture the songs, music, poetry and voices of the gathering there for episode four. To bring it all together, I methodically made one episode at a time, so I listened to and edited the audio interviews I had, wrote and recorded a script and then added background music, poetry and atmospheric sounds to help bring it to life. I wrote all of the comms and episode descriptions at the end to make sure they truly reflected what the episode is about, as it often changes in the editing process as you bring it all together! I like the unfolding creativity in the editing process, never knowing exactly how it is all going to sound until the end.

Why should people listen to The Landworkers’ Radio?

For me, it is all about the voices. Landwork can be hard and lonely at times and a podcast is a great way to feel connected to a wider movement even if you can’t see that in your every day. Each Landworkers’ Radio series explores a different theme and follows a different format – I like the way it changes depending on the topic, I think it allows for more creativity. So we’ve included song, poetry, music, conversations and performance to add more layers to our ways of storytelling and knowledge exchange. The whole aim of the podcast is to inspire, inform and engage you in the land, food and climate justice movement in the UK and globally, so I would just say that if you’re interested in hearing the practices and politics from people at the forefront of that movement then it’s the podcast for you!

Can people get involved if they want to?

Yes! We are actively encouraging anyone to join the podcasting team. We are hoping the podcast can become a useful tool for people around the UK to help share their stories and experiences on the farm, in the woods, on their project, in their community – wherever or whatever it is, we want to hear about it. Whether you’re a landworker or supporting member, we are wanting to build a Landworkers’ radio network – like a podcasting commons – that will provide the skills people need to be able to record, edit and tell their own stories in their own way. We have dreams of The Landworkers’ Radio becoming a vibrant audio resource that people feel empowered to use and engage with, sharing more voices and skills within the movement. So whether you want to be featured on the podcast, make your own episode or series, learn to present, record or edit, or have an idea of where we can go next, then please email both me (georgie.styles@landworkersalliance.org.uk) and Abel Pearson (abel.pearson@landworkersalliance.org.uk) to get signed up to the podcast working group and we’ll take it from there!